From Cinders Rise
by SunlitStarshine
Summary: Impoverished and work-worn Hermione is met by a charming stranger, but is he all that he seems? A Cinderella AU.


Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. Britney Spears does not own Harry Potter. So far as we know, Mickey Mouse does not own Harry Potter. J. K. Rowling - you the lucky duck here. You have the rights. For now.

A/N: Just so's ya know, Drayce actually does mean dragon (like a certain other name we know). I also flipped the tables a bit here cause historically in the HP-verse, witches and wizards were persecuted for their magic, not the other way around. Also, I thought it would be a neat twist having the Pureblood Elitist Snot Family become the Muggle Elitist Snot Family. Anyway. On we go. OH OH and please, _please_ ignore my terrible attempt at writing in an old-fashioned way. I know it sucks but it was a very last-second thing and well I TRIED.

* * *

"Magic!"

She spun around, leaving a trail of sparks sputtering in her wake.

Perhaps she hoped she'd heard wrong. Perhaps she thought it a not unreasonable assumption that she would be met only with the drifts of her imagination, and the scolding of her thoughts for such a flight of paranoid fancy. But of course. She shouldn't be so lucky.

"S-sir!" Hastily tucking her homespun wand behind the folds of her dress was all she could do, and offered no barrier against the understanding lighting the eyes of the young man straddling a stamping horse beyond.

"You. You have magic!" He pointed his forefinger at her in an accusatory manner she was all too accustomed to. It seemed he was charging her, not with the ownership of forbidden power, but with the scrubbing of a floor or the making of a bed.

Hermione, stunned momentarily out of her mental capacities, said nothing.

The two stared at each other appraisingly. A sparrow darted by overhead.

"I almost daren't ask it, sir," Hermione finally spoke when she'd regained her head a little, "But I – I must pray upon your sympathies not to let word of this travel... I am only a servant, sir, and I have never abused my gift, or ever been inclined to do so in any way…"

The man – boy, really – continued to stare. She saw in his gaze a wavering, a weighing of circumstances.

"I have no intentions of betraying you," he said eventually. Hermione released a heavy sigh of relief.

"Thank you! Oh, thank you, kind sir!"

"Do not think of it." His voice was cool, and he looked very much as if he meant her to take this sentiment seriously, rather than as a matter of courtesy. Then he inclined his head. "A servant, you say?" The horse champed as one of his brows disappeared into his snowy-pale hair. "Fine manners you are in possession of, for a serving girl."

"I'm fond of reading." She felt a little affronted and tossed her shoulders back. "Very fond."

"Surely you cannot have received such graces from an education of books alone?"

"Nay, sir." Her indignation faded as suddenly as it had come. "My… my father was quite the gentleman, when he was alive."

"Oh."

The stranger fidgeted on his horse.

"Please accept my condolences."

"They're welcome, sir."

"And… I'd ask you not to address me as sir."

Hermione's eyes widened, but warmth softened her posture when his mouth lifted in an almost mischievous way. "I do so hate titles."

"Then," she returned the smile. "What _can_ I address you by?"

He hesitated for the briefest of instants, which Hermione noted, and which perplexed her. Perhaps his family was of low stature. It certainly looked it, from his clothes, though his airs suggested otherwise. But why should this shame him in the audience of a mere servant?

"Miles." He sat up straighter, seeming more confident. "Miles Drayce."

"Well then, Miles Drayce." Hermione dipped into a low curtsy. "I am pleased to make your acquaintance."

"Please believe me when I say the pleasure resides with me."

His countenance was so very different from what Hermione was used to seeing, save upon her father, God rest his soul. It bore no trace of condescension or disgust. A certain pride in self, to be sure, but kindness as well. Largely kindness.

"Shall I see you again?" she asked in what she hoped was a sufficiently disinterested tone.

The breath caught in her throat as he dismounted, approached, took hold of her dirt-streaked hand and, bending, planted a kiss to it.

"I dearly hope so."

Hermione faintly registered that his eyes were the same dusky silver as her father's wedding ring.

She cleared her throat. "I look forward to that day."

Miles tipped his hat and stepped back to remount his horse. Hermione hurriedly touched her hands to her cheeks as he did, in the hopes that by doing so, she would cool the rather embarrassing blush from them.

It was when Miles was shifting about to settle himself securely on the mare that Hermione noticed something. A flash of gold, very quick, tucked beneath the loose tunic he wore. Odd; perhaps he had a pocket underneath, and dangling from it a watch or some such. Mr. Drayce did not seem the type to carry around valuable articles. It was a brass watch, perchance.

"Until then," he said, calling her attention back to his face. She was rewarded with another smile of mingled arrogant and sweet quality.

Hermione clasped her hands behind her back. "Be careful not to lose your footing on the way out." She extricated one hand for the purpose of pointing out the uneven ground beyond. "It's a bit rocky, yonder."

"I'd be more worried about losing your own."

Hermione frowned and Mr. Drayce, with a grin, nodded at her feet. The blush made itself obnoxious to Hermione by returning, as she saw with mortification that one of her shoes was missing. It was sitting upturned against the root of a springy tree a ways to the left. The devil had been tugged off while she watered the blossoming saplings, no doubt.

But when the shoe was retrieved and got on, and Hermione looking up once more, the handsome stranger and his horse were nowhere to be seen. Naught was there to betray their ever existing but a cloud of dust, fading even as she watched into the air farther down.

She sighed and leaned a hand against the tree that had stolen her goodbye. "Miles Drayce," she murmured. It was a certainty she would never see him again. Just as much a certainty as the fact that she was trapped within the confines of her miserable life, a slave, of no more interest than a passing one to any person – kind and charming or otherwise – for as long as her days chose to extend.

Or so, at least, she believed.


End file.
